Bas Burger to become CEO of BT's Global Services business

May 11, 2017 07:00 BST

BT today announced that Bas Burger is to become CEO, Global Services from 1 June. Bas Burger has been at BT for nine years in a variety of roles, most recently President of BT in the Americas, where he leads BT’s business in the United States, Canada and Latin America. He brings to the role more than 18 years of experience in the ICT sector and has led and helped to transform global organisations.

Burger will take over from Luis Alvarez who has decided to leave BT after nearly five years as CEO, Global Services and 18 years with the company. Under Alvarez’s leadership, Global Services has transformed significantly, consolidating its position as a global leader, providing network, IT and security services to multinational customers. Over these past five years, Global Services has developed a strong set of products, with its Cloud of Clouds portfolio strategy recognised in the market place by customers and industry analysts alike. In addition to delivering cost transformation in Global Services, Alvarez has also delivered strong improvements in customer service and continued to build the company’s multinational customer base, serving many of the world's best known companies.

Following a strategic review of Global Services, there will be a two-year restructuring of its operations to create a simpler and leaner operating model. Technology trends create the opportunity to evolve Global Services as a digital business, driving innovation on the cloud-based platforms that deliver Global Services’ solutions, with its global network at the core. Having successfully steered Global Services towards its next evolution as a digital business, Alvarez feels the time is right for someone else to lead the division.

Bas Burger said:

“Global Services has developed world-leading products and services. This, combined with our strong relationships with our customers, puts us in a strong position to enable the digital transformation of their businesses. I look forward to continuing to build this position, deliver on our strategy and drive growth in Global Services’ strategic portfolio of networking, cloud-based Unified Collaboration, hybrid cloud services and security.”

Gavin Patterson, chief executive BT Group said:

“I would like to thank Luis for the contributions he made to the company since he joined 18 years ago. He has helped to transform the Global Services business during this time, delivering very high levels of support for our customers, while evolving our products and services to seize upon technology changes and new opportunities that lay ahead.

“Technology trends mean we can now be less dependent on owning physical local network assets around the world, giving us the opportunity to transform Global Services into a more focussed digital business that can deliver using cloud-based services. This is exactly what Bas will set out to achieve in his new role leading the business, and I am confident that he will drive Global Services forward.”

Dutch native, Bas Burger (age 46) will lead the Global Services team and ensure that the very high levels of support received by its customers continue to improve. Before joining BT in 2008, Burger was executive president and part of the management committee of Getronics NV. There he ran global sales, channels and partnerships and supported and developed their international business. He was also CEO and Managing Director of KPN Entercom Solutions, NV. Burger holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Bradford, UK.